How Do Kids Connect to Art?

continued

At the State Street Area fair, Roman Tustanivsky, age thirteen and visiting from Mission Viejo, California, is drawn to a piggy bank by sculptor Brian Moore. Why does he like it? "It's realistic," he states, a dubious claim, unless he means that it looks like a piggy bank. Then, after another look, he adds, "It's lazy--just like me!"

His sister Lesia, a year older, points to a large photograph depicting one black and two white wolves. She says she likes it because black wolves, she thinks, are rare. Her brother suggests a metaphorical racial theme, but she disagrees.

Twelve-year old Kate Pelz from Brighton is drawn to the pottery of Scott Gamble: "I like the color and the way one color moves into other colors." Kate says that her home features photographs taken by her fifteen-year-old brother, who, according to their mom, couldn't be bothered to come to the art fair--he's on the couch at home.

Enzo Wallin, age five, is enjoying the spray blowing off the Ingalls Mall fountain in the middle of the "Original" Street Art Fair. He says he enjoys the glass art, and his brother Rex echoes his vote, elaborating that he especially enjoys the glass creatures from the sea and animals sculpted from wood, which he described as "kinda realistic-looking and kinda fake." You could say the same about Carl Milles's sculpture of Triton at the heart of the fountain, but the brothers don't mention it. They do like the cool mist.